The Billionaire's Wife (5 page)

"You mean he's totally
bugfuck," I said.

"I have not met him," she
replied primly. "I'm sure you would know more about that."

"I only met him
yesterday," I said.

Her lips thinned and she appeared
to be debating something. She inhaled and leaned forward. "Miss Dare, may
I speak frankly with you?"

Hooboy. Here it came. The motherly
lecture. "Sure. Why not?"

She laid her hands on the contract.
"As far as sexual perversions go, the ones in this contract are fairly
light."

I raised my eyebrows.
"Oh?"

"Yes. There's nothing in here
about sex with animals or other people or even a sexual schedule, which I have
seen before. Well, not the sex with animals part," she amended. "That
is highly illegal. But the other things, yes. Are you doing this for the
money?"

I felt like crying. "I don't
know if I'm doing this at all yet."

"But there is a good
reason?" She glanced down, then back at me and said, almost gently,
"There is a clause in the contract that covers any medical expenses you
might need. I noted that it does not mention you specifically as the recipient
of medical attention. Is that it?"

I nodded miserably.

She sat back. "Then you should
do it."

My mouth dropped open. I closed it,
then opened it again.

"What, seriously?" I
said.

She nodded. "I know who Anton
Waters is. Most people do. From what I can tell, this marriage would be a
little bit of putting the cart before the horse, yes? You are not currently
romantically interested in him?"

Not romantically, no.
I
shook my head.

She patted the papers in front of
her. "The man who drew up this contract wants a woman who cannot betray
him. This indicates he has a lot of problems, but he is also treating you as an
object rather than a person. The former does not excuse the latter. In my
opinion there is nothing in the world that should keep you from taking all you
can from him, while you can. If you play your cards right, you would be able to
launch a career from this marriage, or become a highly lucrative name. The
world would be your oyster should you marry this man. You would not want for
money should you choose to divorce him." She shrugged. "If the sex is
good and you get something out of the marriage, I don't see why you shouldn't
do it." She gave me a kindly old librarian smile.

I put a hand to my forehead, trying
to assimilate this information. It was terrible because it made sense. I didn't
like the fact that it made sense. I'd wanted her to tell me that this contract
was a complete joke and that there was no way it would be enforceable. That way
I could have just married Waters, then divorced him, taken his money, and saved
my mother. Unfortunately, that didn't seem like it was going to happen.

On the other hand, even with  her
encouragement, I was still hesitant. Fuck Anton Waters? Sure. Date him? From
what I'd seen, a couple of really expensive dinners would be fun to get, but
not much else. Marry him? God no. I wasn't
naive.
I didn't think
marriage had to be for your one true love, but marrying for something other
than love left a bad taste in my mouth.
I must be a secret romantic. Who
knew?

But what choice did I have?

I sighed. "Thanks for your
time," I told her.

She looked surprised. "You
don't want me to go over the contract with you?"

"Will that cost more than the
free consultation?" I asked her. "Because I don't do anything but
free so well."

Her eyes crinkled. "Oh, I'm
sure I could go over it and even make some changes that you'd probably find
useful, pro bono. Of course, I'd expect you to recommend me to your friends.
And if anyone asks, drop my name as your prenup consultant."

"Wow," I said.
"That's... uh..."

"No problem," she said
airily. "It'll be great for my business." She fixed me with a sharp
eye. "And if you marry Anton Waters, get used to that sort of
proposition." She sat up and pushed the contract across the desk, flipping
to the second page. "Now, here's the section about separate property..."

*

By the time I got home and had a
shower, I was full of vim and vinegar and ready to take on the world, and Anton
Waters in particular. I wasn't going to take any of this lying down. Wrapped in
my threadbare bathrobe with a Hello Kitty towel smothering my wet hair, I
called Empire Capital and demanded to speak to Anton Waters.

This didn't go over so well, until
I remembered that I was apparently a VIP in the Empire empire and gave my name.

"Oh!" The poor
receptionist sounded like she was going to have a very peppy heart attack, and
I felt bad. But not very. She was part of the Evil Empire. She was the enemy.
"Yes! Of course, Miss Dare!" The phone line clicked and my ears were
flooded with baroque music. It lasted only a few moments before Arthur's voice
came on the line.

"I'm so sorry, Miss
Dare," he said smoothly, "but Mr. Waters is out of the office. Let me
give you his private cell so you may reach him."

"I... oh." I was taken
aback. I'd worked as a receptionist before, and let me tell you, in some places
giving out someone's private cell number is tantamount to committing ritual
hari kiri in the workplace. If you wanted to fast-track yourself to getting
fired, give out a private cell number. The only explanation that I could come
up with was that Waters had left specific instructions to give his number to me
if I called.

Unnerved, I wrote down the number,
thanked Arthur, and hung up.

Having to call a second number was
less exciting than the first call. The courage I'd mustered from my meeting
with my lawyer—and I had to give it to my father, being able to say
'my
lawyer'
was pretty exhilarating—was fast dwindling. Hearing the lower-level
monkeys at Empire Capital—
my
sort of people—chirp excitedly at me did
not help.

With a gulp, I dialed Anton's
number, turned on the speaker, and put the phone out of reach so I wouldn't
accidentally hang up, take a taxi to the airport, and buy a one-way ticket to
Belize. After only two rings, the phone clicked, and his rich, deep voice
answered: “Waters.”

For a moment I was tongue-tied. All
the things I'd meant to say got tangled up and I couldn't sort through them
fast enough to decide which I should start with. The silence got longer and
longer. I knew this tactic. He was waiting on the other end of the line,
waiting for the person who called him to fill up the silence.
He
was
Anton Waters. He didn't have to talk if he didn't want to, and he certainly
wasn't going to waste precious words asking someone something twice.

“Why is everyone at your company so
nice to me?” I finally blurted. Hey, it was better than nothing.

“Ah, Miss Dare,” he said. “I was
wondering when you would call.”

Uuuuuugh.
He was
such
a twat. Such a movie-cliche twat. And I wanted to fuck him really badly, and I
might actually maybe perhaps marry him. I should have gone to a shrink instead
of a lawyer.

“That's nice,” I said. “Why is
everyone so nice to me?”

“I told them we may be getting
married,” he said.

I couldn't hold in my indignant
shout.
“What?”
I hadn't even told my closest friends, and he'd probably
sent out a company-wide memo about it.

“It wouldn't be good for their
health if they found out after the fact,” he said. “Katy, my front desk
receptionist, already called Arthur yesterday and apologized for being rude to
you when you first walked in. I gather she was very contrite.”

It took me a moment to realize what
he was referring to. “Oh. Well,” I said awkwardly, “I wasn't really dressed for
visiting.” The only place my work clothes were fit for visiting was a street
corner, and even then I'd need a nice cardboard sign to complete the ensemble.
Will
make poor life decisions for food.

Nervously I fidgeted with the towel
I had wrapped around my head. Hearing his voice, even this pale imitation over
my cell phone speakers, was bringing back memories of yesterday, when he
cornered me in his office and pressed me against the wall.

My cheeks heated.
Don't think
about that!
I commanded myself.

“Have you given any further thought
to my offer?” he asked, which made it hard not to think about. Almost absently
the hand toying with the towel on my head drifted down to the hot space between
my thighs and began toying with
that
instead.

No matter how I sliced it, that
couldn't be a good sign. I didn't take my hand away, however. The richness of
his voice had made me wet and slick.

“I went to see a lawyer today,” I
told him.

The other end of the line was quiet
for a fraction of a second longer than I expected. “Good,” he said. “I'm glad.
You should have legal counsel when signing legal documents.”

Yeah.
And she told me to marry
you if the sex was good.
My middle finger circled my clit as though
pondering just how much it could get away with while I talked on the phone.
“Uh-huh. Anyway, I have a few changes to make.”

This time the silence on the other
end was
definitely
longer than I expected. A few other fingers joined
the first. At last there was a rustling sound, and I heard him sigh. “We should
meet.”

I hadn't expected
that,
although
I probably should have. “Okay. At your office?”

“No,” he said. “It's almost lunch
time. We should meet for lunch.”

My roving hand stilled and my
nerves shot through the roof. “Uh. Okay. Where?”

This time when he spoke, I could
hear the smile in his voice, and that made me even more nervous. “I'll send a
car to pick you up.”

“How should I dress—” I started to
say, but he hung up on me.

I stared at the phone in my hand.
Quickly, I redialed his number, but it went immediately to voice mail.

My eyes flew to the contract where
it sat on my coffee table. All that shit about being submissive... that's what
he was doing, wasn't it? He was trying to show me just how much power he held.

“Ass!” I said out loud, though I
would have been hard pressed to tell anyone listening if I were calling Waters
an ass, or merely commenting on the general situation. Maybe both.

I jumped up from my seat, shedding
my towel and bathrobe.

Two could play this game.

*

Anton Waters knew where I lived.

I mean, of
course
he did, it
was right there on his stupid contract, but the fact that a fancy-ass
car—black, naturally—pulled up to my shitty apartment in my little low rent
neighborhood reminded me that he
knew
where I lived. Suddenly my tiny
shoebox didn't seem so safe and snug. For reasons I couldn't define, the idea
that he could probably find me whenever he chose gave me the shivers.

I took a drag of my cigarette and
lifted my chin.

To his credit, the driver Waters
had sent only did a double-take when he saw me, and it was only a small one, at
that. But it was enough. I knew I had done a good job.

I'm not in the habit of dressing
up, and I have to make my clothes last when I get them, so luckily I still had
some truly awful clothes left over from college. The tiny red skirt I wore
contrasted horribly with the orange blouse, worn because it revealed a truly
indecent amount of cleavage. Knee-high leather boots and some torn fishnets
leftover from that Halloween where I dressed up like Sally Bowles completed the
outfit, and I'd layered the blue eyeshadow on like it had gone out of style in
the eighties. I hadn't had time to do my hair so it still hung straight and
wasn't a glorious frizzball like I'd wanted, but I thought I looked pretty
good. For my purposes anyway.

The driver recovered and opened the
door. "Ma'am," he said. "My name is Zachary. Let me know if you
need anything."

"Thank you," I told him,
and got in.

The car was even nicer on the
inside than on the out, and the outside had been pretty damn sweet. Buttery
leather seats caressed my thighs through my fishnets, and there was a tiny bar
built into the seats in front of me.
Look at me,
it seemed to say.
I'm
classy and made of real wood.

"Is the bar free, or do I have
to pay a surcharge?" I asked the driver as we pulled away from my
apartment.

"Mr. Waters said you were
welcome to anything you wish, ma'am." Unlike Katy and Arthur, Zachary
seemed more standoffish, but that was probably my outfit talking. He was the
soul of politeness otherwise, but I could practically feel him replaying the
plot of
Pretty Woman
in his head and trying to figure out which scene he
was in.

Well, I might as well give myself a
little liquid courage. I popped open the bar and grabbed a bottle at random.
Scotch. Of course.

Yuck.

Trying to act cool, I replaced
itand looked out the window. "So where are we going?" I asked.

"To lunch, ma'am,"
Zachary said.

My mouth twisted. "Did Mr.
Waters give you instructions not to tell me where exactly we'll be going for
lunch?"

"Oh, no, ma'am," he said.
"I've never spoken with Mr. Waters directly. But..." In the rear view
mirror he looked faintly embarrassed. "I am supposed to, er, drive around
a bit before dropping you off.”

He looked worried.

“Don't fret,” I told him. “I won't
tattle.”

I settled back and watched the city
glide by me, hoping to calm my jangling nerves, but I must have been more tired
than I'd realized. The cumulative effect of the car's momentum and last night's
ill-considered bender combined to send me into a doze. I was startled awake by
the door opening.